To put this into some perspective for you, someone's who's played FF7, Thordan and the Heaven's Ward are the Knights of the Round summon.

@QuilEkras

7 күн бұрын

Today I learned..

I still can't believe they made the Knights of Round into a boss. So awesome.

@dafire9634

10 күн бұрын

They created an entire expansion just to explain a Knights of The Round bossfight

@chrys_stone8716

7 күн бұрын

I was doing the fight and noticed it too and went apeshit 😅

One thing you'll find in 14 is that things related to the main story tend to heavily use the same motif across an expansion. Each expansion will have a sound that works for things like the dungeon boss themes, town/area themes, etc. Raids and Alliance raids are optional side-content and will usually have their own motifs separate from the main story's. Heroes uses a lot of the motifs from Heavensward, since it's the finale for the launch storyline. A pair of songs for the city of Ishgard (day and night themes) are 'Solid' and 'Night in the Brume' and use that main melody the chorus uses in Heroes if you ever want to listen to those for about 30 seconds each.

Heroes is a top 5 track in FFXIV easily, I love how majestic and holy it sounds then goes into a frenzy, it truly makes the fight so intense when you first hear it! My fav part goes ham from 2:05 PURE HYPE!

Man, I ADORE Heroes Never Die. Still so mad it wasn't included in DSR, one of the Ultimate encounters that reiterates on older encounters.

@EzGamerx

9 күн бұрын

Yeah could have been great if was in dsr somewhere.

I love that you recognize the prelude now, because let me tell you, it shows up in SO many tracks across every FF game. I bet you if you went back to every XIV track you've reacted to, you'd be shocked at how many of them contain the prelude

The best part of these themes is how they go together. In extreme Heroes Never Die plays until Thordan uses his ultimate attack and literally breaks the screen like FF7, then it switches to Heroes for the part where you fight Thordan and his knights all together

@Ladywizard

11 күн бұрын

I remember Hard mode I was like WTF did I seriously survive knights of the round because I remember how slaughtering that summons was in ff7...

There's a reason why it feels familiar to older games this boss it's an actual summon on FF7. I'll let you guess it. Lol 😅

@JessesAuditorium

11 күн бұрын

?? is this supposed to be Odin?

@linkpwnsevery1

11 күн бұрын

@JessesAuditorium it's knights of the round : )

@Ladywizard

11 күн бұрын

@@JessesAuditorium They used Odin for an open world fight that leaves bodies everywhere and one instance fight that I refuse to do at level on the base game

@Xion_Stellar

10 күн бұрын

@@Ladywizard Did you forget about Urth's Fount? He's also in a Trial fight.

@Stylz2012

10 күн бұрын

@@Xion_Stellar She literally said the instance fight lol

Heroes plays for the normal version of the fight, and for the final phase of the extreme fight. Heroes Never Die only plays during the extreme version of the fight, and only for the first half basically. Its a little unusual in that case, as when harder content has its own song, its usually for an extra phase added at the end of the normal fight, not the beginning. As for it sounding like the final boss of a game, I mean, King Thordan is the final boss of the base Heavensward expansion, so that would make sense! Compare to tracks like Ultima or The Worm's Tail, that kind of thing. EDIT Oh, and I just noticed that now with this, youve listened to all the prerequisite songs for the Endwalker boss ost, The Final Day. Looking forward to that react someday!

@TajinQ

11 күн бұрын

I think it'd be best to listen to each of those songs again before listening to The Final Day, it's been a while for most of those

@bru4773

11 күн бұрын

​@@TajinQSure, and it'll be even longer by the time he gets to it. But I dont think that's gonna happen with the framework of these videos

@nicholascunningham4439

10 күн бұрын

Final Day is my absolute favorite 14 song, mostly because of Worm's Tail. I cannot wait for that to happen.

You mention it could be an END boss theme, and I am DEVESTATED to know that nobody has suggested "With Hearts Aligned" from the current expac, Endwalker. It takes a bunch of themes from all of the previous expansions and rolls them into a triumphant burrito of awesome.

There are some Leitmotifs you won't quite catch in Heroes Never Die. When it goes soft and starts playing Piano, that's Azys La, which is a zone theme. And of course, this boss fight is indeed the Knights of the Round. In FF7 it's King Arthur, but here it's Thordan. I won't spoil anything... But this fight is a highlight of the Heavensward story. And there's a Normal version of the fight for the story, an Extreme version of the fight which got you special weapons, and now... there is the Ultimate version of the fight in the form of The Dragon Song Reprised, an alternate "What If...?" scenario of the Heavensward expansion if a few things played out differently. The Ultimate version of this fight is currently considered the HARDEST fight in the entire game, with The Omega Protocol, the Ultimate version of the Omega raid in second place. If you want to see the fight with Sound, here's someone's clear of the Unreal difficulty. Unreal is Extreme difficulty, but the fight is raised to the current level cap, which is 90. kzread.info/dash/bejne/mmZ9ubRmqsndZ6g.htmlsi=1Fs2kN-HECqWPcRE

I'm waiting for one day Uncle Jeese will finally play FF14 and then all the music just click. It would be a manifient moment to witness

Heroes Never Die, another banger arrangement by Yoshitaka Suzuki!

We're here! Heroes in particular is one of the more hard hitting FF14 tracks for me. After the journey of the Heavensward expansion you just get dropped with this music in the battle against Thordan. It gives me chills every time. I can't remember how many Heavensward tracks you've heard. I'd say the HW OST is a bit more Uematsu sounding than the later ones.

Ah, Heroes. This was the fight and song that got me to play FFXIV. I heard it and just HAD to play the game to get to this fight and experience it. Still a 10/10

Heroes also plays during Thordan's phase in Dragonsong's Reprise, which is an Ultimate fight. Ultimate fights are "boss rush" type of fights that last for about 15 to 20 minutes (and it usually takes people months to beat them). Dragonsong's Reprise in particular pictures an alternate version on how the events in the Heavensward expasion unfolded, and it has a great soundtrack! It's final track, Revenge Twofold (Orchestral Version) is amazing, you should check that one :)

I've played literally 5,000 hours of this game over the years and I'm still hearing new songs because of this channel. I had never heard Heroes Never Die and oh my god it's incredible (one of my new faves as well)

@dafire9634

10 күн бұрын

Yeah that version only plays in Extreme, same as how a lot of Savage Fights have different music for phase 2

@thecinders

7 күн бұрын

@@dafire9634 add onto the fact that heroes never die doesnt even have an orchestrion roll, still makes me sad to this day cause its one of the best hw themes

First time I heard this it was like 4 in the morning and that male choir just woke me right up lol. I love how this track starts when you're still in the black screen loading into the boss arena, it just absolutely sets the mood. Still get chills

This fight is SO good! The music is amazing, and it is visually stunning.

I highly recommend Athena - The Tireless One from FF14. It's a whole other experience

That's Knights of the Round from Final Fantasy VII. Later in the fight, they all do Ultimate End together. As for the fight itself: The Normal mode version is pathetically easy while the Extreme mode version is actually one of the hardest Extreme fights in the game. Heroes Never Die plays in Phase 1 of the Extreme mode only, while Heroes plays in the Normal mode and Phase 2 of the Extreme mode.

“Sounds like a hard fight” yeah it was the hardest extreme trial we ever got because of the weird patch it was in 😭 The second track you listened to is the first phase of the extreme trial, the first one you listened to is the only soundtrack in the story version, but is also the phase 2 music for the extreme version

the brilliance in sokens work is the handling of leitmotifs. when you play the game you always have this feeling of "familiarness" in literally every content without sounding repeated if this makes sense :D the endwalker trailer (footfalls) even brings the base main theme with all expansion themes together and its freaking brilliant (love the dragonlanguage part the most), dont even want to start with the lyrics. the depth in details in this game is almost absurd, even some dialogues in the msq changes when you have this and that crafter & gatherer on an certain level :D

This is imo still one of the best fights in the game. Th extreme version synced down has a lot of different mechanics. Chains, towers, aoe baits, knockbacks, gaze mechanics, tank busters that require certain order of party members it has everything

In 2016, a long time now, Heroes was the piece of music that got me to buy Final Fantasy XIV. This is from Heavensward, the first expansion after the game was rebuilt. There's a bit more music in this instrumental space also from Heavensward. A lot of production formulas were established during or just after Heavensward and remained for several expansions.

NOW OUR STEEL SHALL SING

I remember on that Christmas stream a few years back Tomorrow and Tomorrow gave you the feels.

This reaction reminds me of how I felt the first time I played Heavensward

heroes plays during the 2nd phase of what I personally consider to be the hardest fight in the game so your statement about it sounding like a hard fight is pretty true

I love your content! FF14 has the best score!

i'm reprogging Dragonsong's Reprise with friends, EEEEEEEE despair

This fight means a lot to me, and I’m really glad you enjoyed the songs. Surprised that no one mentioned, this WAS the final boss of base Heavensward. It was the first boss fight where the boss had made it personal for me, and loading into the fight to be greeted by this song was absolutely amazing.

This fight, and this song are a huge part of why I absolutely adored Heavensward. The tribute to FF7, the beautiful chanting and rearrangement of Ishgard's theme... It was just the perfect conclusion to what remains one of the better storylines in 14. Plus the weapons you could get from the the Extreme version looked pretty sick. A shame they never added more for the newer jobs.

I love THE PRIMALS rendition of Heroes. After the first set of chants it brings in this sick bass riff before coming in with the guitar. Incredible.

So regarding your statement of it could be a final boss theme, 3.0 was when we got the first Thordan fight, and was the final boss of the launch of Heavensward. 3.1 is when you get Heroes Never Die the Extreme version of the fight (just ramped up difficulty) and swaps back to Heroes after his Ultimate End attack, as it is Knights of the Round from FF7. 3.3 would be the 'end' of the expansion's story (a trait retained through Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringers that the .3 patch wrapped up that expansion's story and .4 and .5 began the new expansion story. In a sense, Thordan is the penultimate boss of Heavensward

This fight's music slaps hard. One of my favourites

Thordan: “If you believe your cause just, I call upon you to defend it with your life”

There actually is many songs like this. 14 just has tons of genres and tons of examples of each. And it all somehow slaps. lol

Heroes Never Die is probably my favorite Heavensward theme, followed closely by The Heavens' Ward.

Heroes contains the same leitmotif as much of Heaven's Ward, with a couple of elements that remind me a lot of a song from FF10 in one spot. I don't know the name of the track in FF10, but it's the one that plays when you land in the Al Bhed's home, while it's being attacked, I think.

You mention this having "final boss" vibes to it. It is. This fight is the final fight from one of the expansions.

Also, in terms of "country", maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but there's a track called "Rhythm of the Realm" that might fit that criteria, at least in one specific fashion

As few have already said this character and fight is based on the knights of the round summon from ff7, there is even a phase in the fight where they all attack in the same order and attack pattern as the og summon and you have to move and dance around to avoid the attacks

So nice of you to record this reaction live at the Singularity Reactor

I'd say this style from Heavensward and ARR have been dropped for more experimental sounds as of late, but in Dawntrail, the new expansin coming up, it feels like it's ressurging, so this style of music might pop back up again for quite a few tracks in the near future. On another note, one cool song that Heroes Never Die has a leitmotif of is Order Yet Undeciphered, which is the theme for the zone Azys Lla, which is essentially where the Thordan fight happens. I'd recommend it. I don't know whether anyone did so in your backlog :P

Soooo Dragonsong-y, haha. Love it, HW is such a vibe. This was the best fight to troll the new guys in. There’s a moment where the whole show stops and it’s almost like the Knights of the Round are gonna wreck your set, but your team survives without a scratch. And MekkahDee was a pioneer.

First time I did this fight I fell in love with the music, best moment by far for me after all the fights I’ve done

It's interesting that you say this could be the theme for a 'final' boss. Every expansion in FF has a base story that ends with a major/final boss fight on expansion release, and then patch content that moves the story from one expansion to another with one or more key moments, including potential 'true' final bosses for the expansion that is ending. Thordan happens to be one of the first types and lorewise the outcome of the fight has far-reaching consequences beyond the circumstances that lead you into this conflict.

"Sounds like it could be a final boss, like, the END of a game." This was actually the final boss for the initial Heavensward Expansion, not counting patches.

I remember this song starting for this fight was the first I was like. "Okay. Yes the music has taken me" I would queue in duty finder, not party finder, just to hear the music.

Just after the prelude is the main heavensward's theme/leitmotiv

"This sounds like final boss music" Because it is! King Thoridan VII is the final boss of the first expasnion Heavensward and him and the Knights of the Round are your finale to the base story. I loved this fight and ive had these songs playing in my in game house for years. Knights of the Round, Alexander, and Diabolos were def some of my favorite content in 14 from old games. All of these are very fun and have very good music. Youve heard all of Alexander and now youve heard Knights of the Round, but not sure you have heard any Diabolos Raid music. (He was a summon in FF8, the Devil that summons gravity). The Diabolos Raid music is "Wrath of the Eikons" (Diabolos Theme), "Voidal Manifest" (Echidna, Scathach Theme), "In Darkness there is One" (Void Ark theme), "Shadow of the Body" (Dun Scaith Theme). Its all very Tim Burton mixed with classic FF music style, very very gorgeous.

This is you fighting the Knights of the Round, so it should sound familar

this song gives me PTSD, but it's still a banger

Man I love Heroes and HND. Thordan EX was a group destroyer, probably still considered the hardest Extreme (difficulty) fight?? So you're spot on about it being hard just from the song. Also I wasnt too worried about getting "real" footage since you'd see it on the EX vid haha, but happy to help!

@Sllandre

11 күн бұрын

Now that it's in Unreal... Mechanically, other fights are definitely harder, comparing it to other ones from more recent expansions. EX6 of Endwalker is harder imo.

@Ladywizard

11 күн бұрын

Honestly Triad was MUCH MUCH worse now if you were talking synced Odin...

@carbonide1290

10 күн бұрын

@@SllandreWell yeah…the games changed greatly (jobs and general action tools) but back then Thordan EX kicked everyones ass. Unreal isn’t close to what it was.

"Sounds like a hard fight" Yes, yes it was lol. At the time of release, the Extreme version of the fight was considered the second-hardest fight in the game by many (me included). Edit: The closest thing I can think of for country music in FFXIV is the chocobo racing theme, "Sport of Kings", but that sounds more bluegrass to me. I put that song on the request list a while ago.

This and Shinryu are my favourites. Oh, and warrior of light and white stone black.... Actually it's hard to pick a favourite 🤣

My favorite song in FFXIV it's Athena, the tireless one.

@meekrophone_

10 күн бұрын

we'll get to hear it here one day for sure

@Keira_Blackstone

10 күн бұрын

that's a take I haven't heard before. I honestly found it really disappointing after the rest of the music in the raid was so good. like, when I think of the story of that raid, my mind thinks of P11 as the end because Athena was so underwhelming to me. Can you articulate what you like about it?

it felt so good doing this fight,

One of my favorite tracks and favorite fights, even if it's rather "old" all things considered in the game. It didn't make it into the game (they used the orchestral version in Ultimate) so I can't request it but if you can I'd love for you to take the time to listen to the Primals version of Heroes. Thank you as always with your honest thoughts and feelings on FFXIV music even if you're a viewer from outside. I'll always think of you as one of us with the amount of time you've put in with FFXIV content. ♥ ✨BONUS Fun Facts about the song: - this is the final boss of the Heavensward expansion main story - the main motif used in this track is the main Heavensward theme - the track didn't get official lyrics until the orchestra live version was made - the lyrics are partially in dragon language; Thordan lied and convinced his people that dragons started the war - the piano leitmotif in Heroes Never Die is the zone theme for Azys Lla, the zone in which you face Thordan - this song is featured in Endwalker's final boss theme which takes motifs from every expansion's final boss - the Ultimate version of the battle uses an orchestra version of Heroes + various other Heavensward themes (like Dragonsong!) ⏯ Thordan Extreme fight - kzread.info/dash/bejne/i4afu7h-psa1frQ.html ⏯ Full Ultimate fight - kzread.info/dash/bejne/qKyKzLt7oajenKg.html

16:30 Does the Euphrosyne boss theme count as country music? "Rhythm of the Realm"

I see jesse reacting to ffxiv . I click

Let's gooooo One of my favorite tracks

Some of the music from Stellar Blade would be worth checking out

"Is there a country song in this game?" BOY DO I HAVE THE TRACK FOR YOU - Rythym of the Realm, the theme of the 24 man raid Euphrosyne, and probably the best of that raid series. It is an Endwalker raid! Edit: On a re-listen, I think it is more country-adjacent.

People always gas up Soken's tracks in the game but they always forget the bangers made by the other composers such as Heroes Never Die (Yoshitaka Suzuki) and Wrath of the Harrier (arrangement by Takafumi Imamura, original composer is Nobuo Uematsu). Another one by Yoshitaka Suzuki and Soken that you've not done is The Final Day. The Final Day cycles through all the end bosses of the base game and the expansions in order but in such a flawless manner

@colinsundin9708

7 күн бұрын

"The Final Day" isn't exactly in order since it starts with "The Worm's Tail" but yeah

One day, when Jesse finally plays ff14, he'll hear the music with all the fight sound effects. 😉

Love the extreme version music.

I think with this you now heard all parts required to listen to The Final Day phase 1 theme which is a medley of all the final boss tracks when you fight the last boss of 6.0.

You are not wrong, as this fight was the END of the Heavensward expansion, he WAS the End Boss of a Game technically xD (before patches and new expansions etc xD)

What I love about Heroes is how well it suits the actual fight in two different ways. The first section with the vocals is like a foreboding reminder that you are facing off against a king who now has god-like powers, and the famed knights of the Heavensward, Thordan's elite team of protectors who also have supernatural powers far beyond a normal person. The second phase speaks to the nature of the fight itself - It's much more aggressive and hectic. This matches the fight because a large portion of it requires players to be constantly on the move: dodging multiple attacks, spreading out or grouping up to disperse damage.. There are moments that just look like pure chaos if you don't know what you're doing. You can see for yourself here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/nIqlmbKbnsqalLg.html.

Can't say there's really any country but a track called Rhythm of the Realm has some fiddling that's intended to be more celtic folk but sounds a bit bluegrassy if you squint your ears.

Given the FF14 song list is now over 800... the answer to your question is more than likely, yes. 😆

7:43 i think this one is from Heavensward, the first expansion after A Realm Reborn, which was... never mind. I think those two (ARR and HW) tend to have more themes that sound like older (though they have vocal stuff like Answers too from the get-go), and Soken started to branch out more after that. I'm not very knowledgeable about pre-"ShB" though

@Ladywizard

11 күн бұрын

HW was right bout when Uematsu retired mostly

I would recommend to start with : Heroes never die, then Heroes

The Heroes song has 2 lite motifs from heavensward, you can hear it in the base line and the instrumental melody. Heroes never die has one of my favorite lite motifs from this expansion, the Azys Lla theme (done by the piano @ 11:32 .) You made me smile when you caught the prelude and I did a spit take when you said "he has a gang now" xD This expansion has a lot of medieval and holy type sounds because we are visiting the the Vatican under martial law and the Pope is not nice.

Heroes is one of my all time favourite songs, and the fight with Thordan is one that really stuck with me Funny thing tho: you said it sounds like a hard fight. The normal version of the fight is so easy, you can actually solo it without much difficulty. The intended party size is 8 people XD Someone I follow, Rath Games, has a series where he attempts to solo as much of the game as he physically can with no outside help and as little advantage he can get away with. When he got to Thordan, he did it on his first try LMAO

@3creps

11 күн бұрын

The thing is, the EX fight was probably the hardest fight up to that point when it released, people are still kind of scarred from it if they played during HW

The Normal fight, The Singularity Reactor, is not very difficult and Heroes is the only song that plays during that fight. The Extreme fight, The Minstrel's Ballad: Thordan's Reign, WILL WRECK YOU. It is one of the most difficult Extreme Trials that FFXIV has to offer. It is also the only place in the game where you can listen to Heroes Never Die, at least until you make it to the second half of the fight where Heroes starts playing.

"Is there a country song?" Oh yeah, Euphrosyne boss theme "Rhythm of the Realm". Not proper country but it definitely got that feel. Also, this game actually has a lot of tracks like Heroes, I guess for a lot of people these kinda tracks aren't as memorable though.

I have been waiting for this one since the moment he started taking FFXIV requests. King Thordan, even now, is still my favorite Primal. A large reason for that is his theme, but can't neglect the epic feel of the fight (though it is a shame they made his story fight woefully easy, a fight can be cinematic AND respectfully difficult, or at least, not have him hemorrhaging HP).

We *might* see a XIV country song in DawnTrail (please look forward to it)

I kinda agree that I get the feeling you are either tired of Soken or just not the biggest fan of his, most of times. Your mood just seems to change whenever it comes up, but its the first time I mention it in a comment since this is just my own interpretation. About the 2 songs: not a big fan of Heroes myself. Got hyped pretty badly 8'ish years ago. Heroes never die on the other hand is one of my favorite XIV songs still. ALso can't go wrong with Knight of the Round. Great Extreme boss. Normal not so much, like usual

I just understood that you never listened to original Ultima, not Weapons Refrain version, would recommend giving it a listen Edit: That would be "FFXIV OST Ultima Theme - Part 1 ( The Maker's Ruin )" and "FFXIV OST Ultima Theme - Part 2 ( Ultima )" on KZread (second one would be my favorite)

Today we SLAY A GODKING! Ahahahahaha funny you should say that it's a hard fight though. The required version that everyone does is one of the easiest in the game, still depressing how easy it is. While the optional extreme is BRUTAL lol. Oooooh yee I hope someone links ya to the extreme version one day, both are visual spectacles but just for the sake of seein the extreme's final phase.

I get the feeling the people recommending ff14 songs to you have a plan but let me just say this: you will Know when you get the Final Final Boss Song

@TaurusVersant

11 күн бұрын

oh also I forgot to mention this but I never properly noticed the Azys Lla theme in Heroes Never Die, that delights me

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The sound for these is closer to FF16, which makes sense since FF14 largely moves on from the medieval stuff after Heavensward while 16's setting is mostly that. I can also see development on 16 starting around the time HW was released so maybe Soken carried that sound forward

@Sllandre

11 күн бұрын

The HW team mostly moved to 16 after finishing HW, so...

You peak into the abyss, the abyss look back. So does FF14 players lol

there IS another song connected to it, and i am shooketh that you didnt pick out the leitmotif in these two! you did the video for it 2 years ago Heavensward!! kzread.info/dash/bejne/i5qOy9OYod2ueZs.html im gonna give you a pass tho since it was a long time ago you heard it and it was a bit subtle in these songs. 😉

I LOVE this song, but the fight it comes from is one of the easiest fights in the game, sadly. I think power creep made it far too easy.

FFXIV went downhill so hard after heavensward